michael_nielsen

It can’t totally be the punchline. There are films which are the work of many people, and yet some pieces feel utterly personal. I suspect it’s a huge amount of work (and $) though.

Agreed. I still don't know how Pixar does it, not just once but consistently. My suspicion is that behind such personal-feeling group-efforts there is a key thought-leader such that the organization is more an extension of one mind than it is a hivemind.

My reading is that there’s usually one person who integrates. But often the core creative ideas may be coming from others.

There is a nice bit in one of William Goldman’s books where he talks about a very lengthy discussion between him (the screenwriter), the director (I forget who), and Laurence Ollivier (the lead). Ollivier wanted to change part of _one line_ in the script. They had…

… a very lengthy discussion about why, what the character motivations were, lots of detailed back and forth, for perhaps 1 second of screen time. And all three would have carried that conversation forward, integrated into their understanding.

My intuition is that you either need lots of high bandwidth communication (and the patience for taking the time to do it) or for one person to be the sole creative dictator (and the team is respectful of that)

The best leaders I know seem to do much of the first. This may help them attract and retain the best people. If you have Ollivier and Goldman on your team, but won’t listen deeply to them, you’re making a bad mistake.

Great point, the role of the leader should be to expose himself to the micro-expertises of a talented team.